Biden must move quickly to reverse Trump’s assault on environment
As his days in the White House dwindle, Donald Trump is doing everything he can to wreak environmental destruction. Preventing that will require a huge and immediate effort by the incoming Biden administration.
How bad has Trump been? On Sunday, Trump verbally trashed the Paris climate agreement in an address to the Group of 20 summit. He is handing out last-minute oil- drilling leases that would despoil the vast Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is a pristine home to caribou, waterfowl, polar bears, Arctic foxes and other species. He has declared open season on the centuries- old trees in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the world’s largest intact temperate rain forest and the “lungs of the country,” by opening it to logging.
Trump’s recent actions follow four years of assaults on our planet. He has undermined clean air and clean water rules. He has promoted the burning of fossil fuels, which contribute to climate change by releasing greenhouse gases into the environment. He has hacked away at environmental enforcement.
He has tried to trade away congressionally designated wilderness. He is trying to put environmentally damaging roads, destroying plant life, in the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. He has allowed permitting to proceed for mining that threatens the spectacular Boundary Waters wilderness on the Canada-United States border.
Reversing a tsunami of destruction
Even while dealing with a host of other important issues, beginning with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration must find a way to reverse this tsunami of environmental destruction. State and local governments need to help in any way they can.
On Monday, Biden took a step in the right direction by naming John Kerry, a former secretary state, senator and Democratic presidential nominee, as the presidential envoy for climate, reporting directly to Biden.
But that is just a start. The Trump administration has spent four years upending Obama- era regulations put in place to protect the environment, often through Trump’s executive orders, such as one in 2017 ordering federal agencies to dismantle their climate policies. In many cases, Biden can now nullify Trump’s actions with executive orders of his own, but his administration needs to do more. We have lost four critically important years.
GM steps up
In a positive development Monday, General Motors said it would no longer side with Trump’s effort to nullify California’s fuel economy rules, which would reduce dangerous emissions. GM said it will now side with Biden’s plan to move to climate-friendly electric vehicles. We hope this is a sign that many industries will join Biden in reversing Trump’s environmental depredations.
During his campaign, Biden put forth a number of sound proposals for protecting the environment and countering climate change. One is his “Thirty by Thirty” plan, which would conserve 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030. Forests, wetlands and rain forests, such as the Tongass in Alaska, absorb gases that otherwise would get into the atmosphere and heat the planet.
Taking action locally
But even if Democratic candidates win both run- off Senate races in George, Biden will face strong Republican opposition in the U.S. Senate. That’s why much of the progress must take place at the state and local level.
In Illinois, there is word that the Legislature might not hold a veto session before the next full session of the Legislature begins in January, although a legislative spokesperson told us Monday said “the hope is to have one.” That would be a setback for clean energy legislation, which backers have been hoping to pass in the veto session.
The legislation, called the Clean Energy Jobs Act, would promote renewable energy and would help reduce the demand for fossil fuels and do its part to lessen interest in drilling in the Arctic.
Perhaps one issue above all — Arctic drilling — speaks loudest to the willingness of Trump and his supporters to do deep but unnecessary environmental damage. In the Arctic refuge, a grizzly bear might live its entire life and never see a human. The tundra is one of the few places in the world not beset by invasive plant species. But it is so fragile that if someone walks across it, it might take decades to recover.
The last few grains are dropping out of the hourglass that tracks how much time we have to rescue the environment. The Biden administration is sending out the right signals, but it cannot relent in its efforts.